Microsoft Senior Software Engineer reviews

The stock is flat. The weather in Seattle is generally lousy. The future of the company is not as rosy as the past. The traffic in the area is lousy during commute times. There is a general lack of innovation from the newer guys. They expect everything to come from a book.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is a really big company and the corporate bureaucracy is most acutely felt during review time. Review goals are often made irrelevant by changing requirements during the course of the year and the review process is lumbering and is often times burdensome. Your career advancement & opportunities are often determined more the by subjective opinions of ill informed managers, than by merit & objective facts. If you have a good relationship w/ a good manager, you'll probably go far in your career. If you have mediocre manager or one that you have a strained relationship with, you should switch groups or leave the company, ASAP. It's easier to advance your career outside of Microsoft than inside of it. The stock based compensation (options, grants & ESPP) isn't anywhere near what it was during the 1990s and the base salary hasn't made up the difference.